Monthly Archives: April 2013

The only thing left for me to ponder in Terence Malick’s latest meditation on preponderance, To The Wonder (a contemporary love story of an Okie and a Eurotrashy ditz with happy feet from Paris), is where exactly in France is that fairytale castle surrounded by mushy sandy waters? And why the fuck would they settle down in the badlands of Oklahoma instead?

Well, turns out that castle is Mont Saint-Michel, in the lower region of Normandy that dates back to the 10th century. But as far as to why they (or anyone for that matter) would want to live in a newly built two story house in Oklahoma without a fucking washer and dryer? Golly, I still couldn’t tell you. And that’s probably the most enduring mystery of the film. If I had to guess, it had something to do with Ben Affleck’s job there – walking around with a picnic cooler surveying the land for god knows what when he’s not busy chasing his wife (Olga Kurylenko) through wheat fields and smelling buffalo chips. Which is probably why everyone is so loopy and dizzy and suffers from lymes disease. That being said – as if we didn’t already know Olga is not the greatest actress, we now know she sure shit can’t fucking dance either. And while Ben may not be the greatest dancer he sure shit can’t fucking act without his beard – besides the scene where he wears a lampshade on his head. To be fair, Malick finds more poetry in the visual silence of sheer curtains blowing in the wind and adults jumping up and down on beds then good old fashion dialogue.

After watching those boring ass lovebirds, Rachel McAdams is definitely a breath of fresh air as she radiates like she were in a Carhartt/Sundance catalogue, unconvincingly playing a ranch handler with not a speck of dirt or grime on her. Still, not a bad rebound for Ben.

As for priest Javier Bardem – he is either mumbling to himself or to Jesus. I’m not really sure. But the scene when Olga goes to him for confession is truly a revelation, in that it’s so private that there’s no way I could tell you what was revealed and neither could Malick. You just have to go see the movie yourself to come up with your own conclusions but I’m telling y’all right now your time will be better spent at the local laundromat instead of watching them do theirs.

Considering Roger Ebert gave this a thumbs up you have to wonder if he knew this was likely his last review and therefore took comfort in the Javier’s sermon of “God to the left, God to the right…” – whereas I’d have to give it a thumbs down because all I see are clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right and here I am stuck in the middle. But till then Roger, please save me an aisle seat…

The only reason I’m rating Oblivion a high 20% is for those snazzy velcro hightop sneakers Tom Cruise (Jack Harper) sports throughout – minus the scene he tosses them to go skinny dipping with his “effective” partner Victoria (Andrea Louise Riseborough) in their futuristic glass pool high atop the clouds safe from the toxic air below. Because as far as I can gather from Tom’s opening monotone narration – many moons ago there was some kind of war of the worlds shit in which space invaders not only decimated the Earth but even went so far as to destroy our moon! Now folks, that’s just plain rude. Who would do such a thing and why? Well that’s exactly what we have to figure out as Jack Harper grapples with his inner demons, allegiance, and ultimately his identity. (Sort of like how in real life Tom has to grapple with his homosexuality by suppressing it with his devotion to Scientology.)

Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with all the loopholes within this sci-fi movie but there are a few things which I just can’t dismiss lightly – Like how come when Tom is flying that high tech contraption he’s not wearing a fucking helmet? Forget about knocking your head about, but how about the radioactive air he has to breathe? And why would Victoria not wash her fucking hands after being completely wigged out over touching a toxic flower before preparing dinner? And when Jack Harper plays Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On you can clearly see him drop the needle on the vinyl to the first song on the side when that song is actually the third on side 2!! And lastly, I guess the bit about the moon.

And you know what else is gay? Creating something so trite, obvious, and especially unoriginal. As if we haven’t seen glass houses, underwater sex sessions, human pods, clones, underground bands of survivors or those Portal 2 drones before – we have to be subjected to more lame lovestruck Sleepless in Seattle and Love Affair goobers atop the Empire State Building.

“How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?” – Max Bialystock